Daily Archives: November 10, 2010

From time to time, I get accused of being an agent of the Office of Special Affairs, Scientology’s in-house secret police (and the former domain of Mike Rinder). I actually find the accusation rather amusing – I’m about as likely to join the Church of Scientology as David Duke is to join B’nai B’rith – but I often wonder why people (usually Scientologists) think that. I’ve tried to find out from Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder, but I’ve never been able to get a straight answer. However, I did find something useful in a reply to this post on Marty’s blog. In this comment, a reader named RJ said:

Anyway the way to spot these guys is by the fact even though they’ll attack the subject and even malign Ron [Hubbard] they will avoid talking about Miscavige or worse try to give the impression that he was anointed personally by the Ol’man to assume the throne or that he is just applying policy.

I’ve been watching these OSA Ass-Clowns since they first hit ARS [alt.religion.scientology, a Usenet newsgroup] and changed their tactics from theta spamming the entheta to playing the roles of critics in order to divert the [newsgroup] from any meaningful discussions about how Hades Dave and his evil minions were perverting Scientology and making a mockery of the subject.

RJ makes a very good point. I’ve written a great deal pointing out that many of the abuses attributed to David Miscavige originated with L. Ron Hubbard, and I’ve made a specific effort to disprove Marty when he blames LRH’s policies on David Miscavige. I’ve even posted a blog entry from Aaron Saxton suggesting that DM was LRH’s choice to take over the Church.

Now, I’m sure that the bulk of you see the point I am trying to make, but to a hard-core Scientologist, for whom anything negative about LRH or Scientology is “entheta,” it probably does look like I am trying to defend David Miscavige while putting down Marty Rathbun – both of which are goals of the official Church of Scientology.

And then there’s the fact that Independents believe that the Church is screwing up Scientology as part of a deliberate, evil attempt to ensure that mankind never becomes truly free. (Churchies believe the same thing about Independents.) From what RJ’s saying, it sounds like they see my posts about the ill-intentioned roots of Scientology as merely a distraction from the real issue, i.e. DM’s systematic perversion of LRH’s technology. As far as they’re concerned, I’m not saying anything meaningful, I’m merely creating a diversion. (This ignores the fact that, per LRH policy, by questioning and ridiculing Scientology doctrine, I’m committing a Scientology crime.)

Keep in mind that Hubbard taught his Scientologists that the world is made up of two-sided issues; you’re either with us or against us. He called it a two-terminal universe. There is no room for a third viewpoint, i.e. one that thinks both LRH and DM are full of crap. I’m sure not every Scientologist believes this, but from my experience, a lot of them do.

Now, I certainly don’t want to sound like I’m sticking up for David Miscavige. As far as I’m concerned, he’s an evil little troll. Still, the focus of this blog is LRH, and DM often takes a back seat (where he fits quite nicely. Ha! Ha!) I’ve been careful to point out that by blaming DM’s actions on LRH, I’m not giving the little guy a free pass, but I don’t think that’ll pass muster with the Scientologists. To wit, here’s more from RJ:

What’s unique about these more recent attacks is that they are even obliquely criticizing Miscavige by using the term “DMbot” (I can imagine the OSA op’s hand shakily typing this into the keyboard) in order to give themselves cred as not an OSA operation.

So I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

My alternate theory, which I’ve posted on this blog (and attempted to post on Marty’s, although he’s censored it) is that Marty is trying to label me as OSA as a “dead agent” technique. Keep in mind that Marty views me as part of the problem (i.e. suppressing freedom by suppressing Scientology), and by saying I’m OSA, a group that most of his readers mistrust, Marty can torpedo my credibility; if they come to this site and read, they’ll be disinclined to listen from the get-go – that’s the dead agent technique. The Church does exactly the same thing to discredit Marty.

Marty might also be applying LRH’s positioning “tech,” which says that you could make something seem bad by positioning it with something that people didn’t like. LRH used psychiatry – a fail, since few people in the outside world share LRH’s hatred of the “psychs” – but using OSA is a win for Marty, as his followers are so upset with the Church.

I recently asked Marty how I could prove I was not OSA, and he asked me for my name, which I said I’d discuss in email. He never emailed, so he either doesn’t really believe I’m OSA or he doesn’t really care. I tend to assume the former, although I have to remind myself that Marty probably believes LRH about this being a two-terminal universe. That’s yet another thing Marty’s followers have in common with DM’s: They think anyone who talks crap about the tech (like me) must be working for the other side.

Incidentally, I’ve also been accused of being an OSA agent by anons, but I’m guessing that’s because I’m fairly fluent in Scientologese, and when I think I’m addressing a bonafide Scientologist, I’ll often use the vernacular. I get the feeling that most serious protesters, even if they don’t agree with my view, have figured out that I’m not OSA.

Anyway, I don’t know if any of this matters much; it’s not going to affect what I write, although I will be sure to continue making the point that by enforcing these policies, DM is no less guilty than LRH. Regardless… well, I just thought it was interesting. And now, if you read someone somewhere saying I’m an OSA agent, you’ll know why.

Oops, my secret direct phone line to David Miscavige is ringing. Gotta go!